West Virginia is a State that has had a historically low success rate in obtaining grant funds from the National Institutes of Health and has been designated as an IDeA state. In this renewal application, Marshall University (MU), in partnership with West Virginia University (WVU), will continue to build on the success of the West Virginia IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (WV-INBRE) to help develop biomedical research infrastructure and capacity throughout the network and provide biomedical research experiences for undergraduate and graduate students from the partner institutions. MU, in partnership with WVU, will continue to serve as lead institutions to a research network consisting of thirteen primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). The multi-disciplinary theme for WV-INBRE will be cellular and molecular biology with an emphasis on chronic disease (cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity-related illness). Supporting the activities of the network will be the Adninistrative, Bioinformatics and Genomics Cores which have been established to facilitate research progress, mentoring and training, and career development of investigators and students at the lead and partner institutions. Research in the network will be supported by major PUI research awards. Faculty Reseach Development Awards (FRDAs), and Center for Natural Products Research, Genomics Core and Chronic Disease Research Program pilot project awards. Ties to WV COBREs and the Health Sciences and Technology Academy (HSTA; an NIH-funded SEPA program) will be expanded and ties initiated to the WV IDeA-CTR. Programs are proposed to provide research opportunities for PUI students, including the summer research program and HSTA graduate initiative, to help serve as a pipelinefor these students into health-related research careers. HSTA high school science teachers and partner institution faculty fellows will also be provided summer research opportunities at the lead and network instittutions.Through providing worshops, seminars, research training and mentoring, and access to state-of-the-art core facilities, WV-INBRE will help enhance the science and technology knowledge and skill base of the WV workforce.